Ancient anchors off Tamil Nadu coast and ship tonnage analysis

摘要

The coastal region of Tamil Nadu played a major role in maritime activities even before the Christian era. In the course of such activities some of the ships which visited this coastal region, lost their anchors made of stone or metal. This paper presents the details of a few of such anchors recovered by the Centre for Underwater Archaeology of Tamil University, Thanjavur. An attempt is made to find the possible dates of these anchors and to calculate the approximate tonnage of ships served by these anchors. Information on a few stone anchors found in the west coast region is also used in this analysis. Our study suggests the need of further analysis of the anchors that are found in the Indian coastal waters. This can provide interesting results regarding the characteristics of ships that floated in Indian waters.